هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara

Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara

The 3^rd Dynasty lasted less than 100 years and marked the
beginning of a “classical era” of monumental royal tombs. Non-royal mastabas continued to develop in complexity,
materials employed and size and were often clustered around royal tombs.

[size1=9]At least three step structures were built as royal tombs, although
only Djoser’s was completed. A number of small, sub 20m, pyramids were constructed close to religious sites (from Seila
to Elephantine) possibly for symbolic use. By the end of this period the complex included “standard” structures of a
square pyramid, royal-cult complex [modern description for mortuary complex], enclosure walls
& subsidiary structures and boat pits.

Djoser’s Step pyramid was a major advancement in funerary architecture. Up until
the 3^rd Dynasty the main building material had been mud brick, this complex became the earliest monument in
the world to be built entirely in stone. This was the first time building on this scale had been undertaken and it
reflects the organizational skills of the central government and the strength of royal power to be able to deploying the
resources and labour needed to construct such a vast complex. This first stepped pyramid was commissioned by Djoser
(Horus name Netjerykhet - the name found on the wall of the complex), the architect who planned and constructed this
monument was Imhotep the high priest and vizier to Djoser. Most of our current knowledge about the site is attributed to
the extensive work of Jean-Philippe Lauer.

The complex covers an area of 37 acres which would have been equal to the size of
a large town during the old kingdom. It is surrounded by a wall built from a thick core of local stone and faced with
Tura (east side of Nile adjacent to Saqqara) limestone measuring 10.5 metres high and 1,645 metres long. The wall was
panelled in the same way as the early mastabas with 14 irregularly spaced entrances, 13 of which are carved in stone as
an imitation of closed wooden doors the only true entrance is on the east wall.

هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara Step1

هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara Step1

1 Entrance

2 South Tomb

3 Chapel of the South Tomb

4 Heb-Sed Court

5 Boundary Marker

6 Altar

7 Djoser's Step Pyramid

8 Northern Temple

9 Court of the Serdab

10 Pavilion of the South

11 Pavilion of the North

12 Western Mastifs
A User-Kaf's Pyramid

B Unas's Pyramid

C Ptah-Hotep and Ankti-Hotep's mastaba

D Philosopher's Circle

The centre piece of the complex is the stepped pyramid which began life as a
mastaba, although almost square rather than the usual rectangular shape. According to Lauer there were six distinct
stages in the transformation from mastaba to stepped pyramid Lehner equates this to a major alteration every six years
of Djoser’s reign. The original structure was built from local stone and covered in Tura limestone, a second layer of
limestone was added to all four sides slightly lower than the original mastaba resulting in a small step. The east side
was to be extended by eight metres but before this was completed all four sides were extended to create the bottom of a
four stepped pyramid. Extensions were then made to the north and west faces resulting in a six stepped superstructure
dressed in Tura limestone and the largest monument in ancient Egypt at the time.

The substructure was developed into an underground structure not seen before there
are 5.7 metres of shafts, tunnels, chambers galleries and magazines. A central corridor connects four hundred rooms,
creating one of the most complicated tangles of tunnels and shafts the ancient Egyptians ever created. This subterranean
palace was lavishly decorated, the original burial chamber was dressed in alabaster with a pavement of diorite and a
roof of limestone with large five-pointed stars in low relief, the earliest known example of a star ceiling. This
chamber was abandoned probably in line with the expansion of the superstructure. The final burial chamber consisted of a
vault dressed with granite blocks. In the eastern chamber a number of walls are covered in rows of blue faience tiles
with bands of raised limestone resembling reed matting it is thought these represent the inner private rooms of the
palace.

Enclosed within the wall is a vast array of functional and dummy buildings. In a
large open court south of the pyramid there is a low alter and two B shaped objects which are thought to mark out the
ceremonial course for the royal jubilee. In the corner of this court is the south tomb a large mastaba with an attached
offering chapel. The substructure of the mastaba is a copy of the stepped pyramids subterranean layout with a granite
dressed burial chamber and subsidiary galleries decorated with reliefs of Djoser and the same glazed blue faience tiles
found in the main pyramid. This tomb is too small to have been used for a burial and various suggestions have been made
for its purpose, a fictive tomb for a ritual death during the Heb-Sed ceremonies, a home for the Kings ‘Ka’ or the
burial place for the Kings internal organs. What ever the purpose of the south tomb it appears to be the precursor of
later satellite pyramids.

There are several dummy building on the east side of the complex which are
associated with the Heb-Sed festival or royal jubilee. During the Hed-Sed festival the king was magically rejuvenated
during a ceremony which included the king running a course and re-enacting his coronation. These buildings include a
rectangular court with chapels, a coronation dais and retiring rooms. To the north of the complex are the ‘houses ‘of
north and south which are said to represent the shrines of lower and Upper Egypt. Each shrine has a court with engaged
columns leading to a cruciform sanctuary containing niches for statues.

On the north side is the mortuary temple which developed from the mastaba offering
niche or chapels. This is where daily offering to the king are made. Next to this is the Serdab, a completely sealed
room apart from two peep holes containing a seated statue of Djoser. The statue was important as it could be a resting
place for the kings ’Ka’ if his physical remains were destroyed.

At the north end of the large terrace there is a rock-cut altar with underground
storage. Finally there are two long parallel structures of solid masonry along the west side of the complex the
significance of these are uncertain.
It also contains a Southern
tomb with similar substructure as the pyramid but with a mastaba superstructure - which could have been a cenotaph,
canopic repository or a home for Djoser’s Ka - this is an early form of a satellite pyramid.

There were at least two further attempts at building step pyramid complexes in the
3^rd Dynasty, either never finished or occupied. The first has been ascribed to Sekhemkhet and contains the
essential elements of a seven stepped pyramid, a panelled enclosure wall and a south tomb over a deep burial shaft the
whole complex is similar to Djoser’s. The second complex is in a poorer state. Only the lowest courses remain of what
may have been a six or seven stepped pyramid.

هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara Saqqara_jul_2006_0073

هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara Saqqara_jul_2006_0073

View facing northward

هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara Saqqara_jul_2006_0109

View facing northward, Boundary Marker in the foreground

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View facing north-east with User-Kaf's Pyramid in site to the right of the base.
[/size]

Heb-Sed Complex

هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara Saqqara_jul_2006_0023

Heb-Sed Complex

The space between the entrance and the southeast corner of the Step Pyramid was filled with a
complex of symbolic buildings to which a narrow passageway led, turning north right after the beginning of the entry
colonnade. This complex has come to be called the sed festival complex or the heb-sed festival courtyard.

The precise meaning of the word sed is not known, and not much is known about the meaning of the festival, which is
generally seen as a celebration of the king's accession to the throne and a ceremony of renewal intended to strengthen
the ruler's power. This festival was supposed to take place after the king had reigned for thirty years, but since kings
involved seldom lived that long, in practice the length of time was abridged and the ceremony only symbolically
performed. The ruler did not actually move around the palace from one sacred place to another, as is shown in the images
on the temple walls. The burial of the aged ruler in the form of a statue was also symbolic. The whole festival may have
been a distant echo of a harsh prehistoric ritual in which the ruler had to prove his physical strength or be ritually
killed and replaced by a younger successor.

The core of the sed festival complex is an open courtyard whose east and west sides were originally flanked by rows of
chapels. There were twelve of these chapels on the east side, and their smooth facades, framed by half-round moulding,
were topped by arched vaults. In each chapel was a niche for a statue. The model for this architectonic element was the
Lower Egyptian chapel type (per nu), which was originally built of mudbricks, wood, reeds, and straw. Today three
unfinished limestone Osiris-statues of the king still stand on the east side of the courtyard.

On the west side stand thirteen chapels with two kinds of facades. The "Hall of the God" type (seh netjer) has a
facade surrounded along the sides by half-round mouldings. The "Great House" type (per uer) represented the Upper
Egyptian shrine, which originally consisted of a light, wood-frame structure over which matting was attached. The facade
was decorated by a group of three fluted half-columns, which imitated the plant Herculaneum Giganteum, including its
dried flower petals. It represented a small chapel with an opening into which a symbol of the god was inserted at some
time. The upper edge of the facade took the form of an arched vault. As on the east side, each chapel had a niche for
the statue, which was accessible by a low ramp. On the north end of the western row of chapels a group of four statues
originally stood, of which only the pedestals, two large pairs of feet (see photo) on the right and two smaller ones on
the left, have been preserved. Usually, they are said to have represented Djoser, his possible mother Nimaathap, and his
wife and daughter, Hetephernebti and Inetkaus.

At the south end of the courtyard was an elevated platform, on which the king's throne stood under a baldachin during
the ceremonies. Here the ruler was symbolically crowned.

In the southwest part of the sed festival complex stood a smaller building, aligned north-south. Since we still do not
know its function, it is generally called the Small Temple, and it also has slender, fluted half-columns. A corridor,
whose arched shape repeats that of the southwest corner, provided access to this building from the coronation platform.
No doubt here as well the architect was influenced by the construction methods of Early Dynastic Period buildings. The
curve is modelled on either woven mats or mudbrick masonry, whose strength would have been reduced by using a right
angle.

According to Lauer, the subject of the sed festival later ceased to be expressed by the architecture, and was
represented instead by bas-reliefs in the mortuary temple and the sun temple. Arnold follows Ricke in viewing the
complex as the prototype of a special room with images of the sed festival, which has been shown to have existed in the
pyramid temples from the end of the Fifth Dynasty on, and which has come to be called the antichambre carreé
(square antechamber). Stadelmann, elaborating on Werner Kaiser's archaeological analysis of the construction of the
complex, maintains that this room is not merely a structure symbolizing the sed festival, but is rather part of a more
comprehensive scene of burial rituals; seen from a functional point of view, the sed festival complex is close to the
open statue courtyards of the later pyramid temples from the Fourth to the Sixth Dynasties.

Source: The Pyramids, their Archaeology and History; Miroslav Verner; Atlantic
Books; 2002

هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara Saqqara_jul_2006_0028

هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara Saqqara_jul_2006_0028

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constructions

هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara Saqqara_jul_2006_0031

The centre piece of the Djoser Step Pyramid's complex is the pyramid
which began life as a mastaba, although almost square rather than the usual rectangular shape. According to Lauer there
were six distinct stages in the transformation from mastaba to stepped pyramid Lehner equates this to a major alteration
every six years of Djoser’s reign. The original structure was built from local stone and covered in Tura limestone, a
second layer of limestone was added to all four sides slightly lower than the original mastaba resulting in a small
step. The east side was to be extended by eight metres but before this was completed all four sides were extended to
create the bottom of a four stepped pyramid. Extensions were then made to the north and west faces resulting in a six
stepped superstructure dressed in Tura limestone and the largest monument in ancient Egypt at the time.

هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara Saqqara_jul_2006_0061

هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara Saqqara_jul_2006_0061

هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara Saqqara_jul_2006_0065

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southern tomb......المقبره الجنوبيه

هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara Saqqara_jul_2006_0093

By all Egyptological reckoning the Step Pyramid itself is a functional royal tomb. But in
Djoser's complex, in addition to the Step Pyramid, we find the enigmatic South Tomb. Below it the builders replicated
three essential features of the substructure of the pyramid: the descending corridor; central shaft with the granite
vault; and the king's palace with its blue-tiled chambers. As under the pyramid, the builders blocked the descending
corridor except for a narrow stairway to allow them to bring in whatever it was they placed in the vault. About halfway
down the corridor a side chamber was found filled with large jars. On top of these the workmen had left a wooden
stretcher, box and posts from a baldachin that resemble those of Hetepheres's cache at Giza.

Robbers had done far less damage to the South Tomb than the pyramid itself, so excavators found the manoeuvre chamber
intact. The walls were of large limestone slabs and the underside of the stone ceiling beams had been rounded to imitate
palm logs. As in the pyramid (though here at the south rather than the north end), the burial chamber was entered by a
round aperture. Remarkably, the wooden beam used to lower the granite plug was still in place with traces left by the
ropes still visible. Incorporated into the masonry of the manoeuvre chamber were blocks of fine limestone with
relief-carved stars - remains of a previous vault.

The granite vault is similar to the one under the pyramid, but it is much smaller, and its
interior was covered in green traces of copper. What was placed in this vault, too small for a human burial? Various
suggestions have been made: that it was a fictive tomb for a ritual death during the Heb-Sed ceremonies when the king
renewed his vital forces; that it was the home of the king's ka; that it was the burial place of the royal placenta,
preserved from birth until death; that it was for the burial of the crowns; or that it was a symbolic reference to the
old tombs at Abydos, be they actual or fictive burial places. Lauer thought it might have been for the king's internal
organs, removed during mummification, though in later times the canopic chest containing these was placed in the same
chamber as the body.

The entire South Tomb complex may have been intended for the king's ka, and the Egyptians often
gave the ka special funerary treatment by the separate interment of a statue. There is compelling evidence that Khafre's
satellite pyramid was used for a statue burial. The South Tomb may thus be seen as the precursor of later satellite
pyramids. The wooden stretcher, box and poles found in the magazine in the South Tomb may be the ritually disassembled
parts of the apparatus used to carry such a statue.

All indications point to the fact that the South Tomb was finished first: the king's inner palace is far more complete
than that of the pyramid. Chamber I has six panels identical to those under the pyramid, with blue faience tiles laid on
a limestone backing imitating reed-mat facades with a vaulted top supported by djed columns. One contained the real door
from the vestibule. In another chamber three more panels contain false door stelae, while the fourth contains the real
door exiting to a short corridor. Two more chambers are covered, like their counterparts under the pyramid, with blue
faience inlay. The blue-tiled chambers are one of the most impressive features of the Djoser substructure. Ye the
product of this extraordinary care and craftsmanship was never intended to be seen by living eyes; it was meant instead
to ensure something in the king's existence after death. The clue to what that was lies in the false door stelae, which
form the pictorial and textual determinative to the entire underground complex. In the darkest, most in-accessible place
the Egyptian builders could devise, the, used the best of their nascent abilities in relief and text to depict the king
in perpetual communion, not so much with his living subjects, as with the netjeru, the gods and denizens of the
Nether world, where the king's mat palace was now part a the watery, sacred region of primeval reed shrines.

Source: The Complete Pyramids, Mark Lehner; Thames and Hudson; 1997I

هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara Step_south_tomb

هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara Step_south_tomb

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هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara

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هرم زوسر المدرج بسقاره.....Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara

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